Visit to the former Theresienstadt camp in the Czech Republic

Review

“Theresienstadt (Terezín)? Yes, I've heard of it. No idea what actually happened there. Was it a concentration camp or a ghetto for Jews like the famous Warsaw Ghetto?”

We heard questions like these and similar ones many times, which is why we set out a year ago to learn more about this place.

Theresienstadt is a small Bohemian town about 50 km north of Prague. It was built between 1780 and 1790 as a fortress and garrison town by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II and named THERESIENSTADT in honor of his mother Maria Theresa. In 1941, the Nazis decided to turn Theresienstadt into a ghetto for Jews from all over Europe. It became a collection and transit camp before further transport to the extermination camps in the east.

After our first visit, we decided to return with a larger group. So on Saturday, May 3, we set off in two minibuses with 16 people.

Our excursion began in the so-called “Small Fortress,” a massive bulwark that housed a notorious prison. We were shocked to hear about the living conditions that the Jewish prisoners in particular had to endure. Hunger, catastrophic hygienic conditions, and torture were the order of the day. I was particularly shaken by the dark cells where prisoners had to stand all night after hard labor.

After a lunch break in a bistro, the second part of our excursion began. First, we visited the Ghetto Museum. The ground floor is dedicated to children. Around 11,000 boys and girls of various ages were separated from their families between 1941 and 1945 and housed in children's homes. Only about 1,600 of them were liberated by the Red Army. All the others were sent to concentration camps and perished.

On the first floor, we learned about the transports to the ghetto and on to the extermination camps.

We continued across the market square to the former Magdeburg barracks, which was the seat of Jewish self-government during the Nazi era. We saw excerpts from a hair-raising propaganda film that the Nazis had made to show the world how “humanely” they treated the Jews. Everyone who participated in this film was immediately deported to Auschwitz afterwards. We visited a theater room with various props, a dormitory, and saw a large number of drawings that artists had secretly made of the everyday horrors of life in the ghetto.

Then we continued on to an impressive prayer room decorated with wonderful murals. Somehow, you could still feel the atmosphere of prayer in the room. Above this prayer room is a replica of a tiny apartment. However, there were only a few of these, which were reserved for privileged ghetto residents.

We ended our tour with a prayer at the wall that surrounds the entire area.